Who is the real RINO?

The insult du jour for Republican candidates this election cycle is being labeled a RINO, a Republican in Name Only. Unfortunately, the insult has been so overused lately it’s been rendered meaningless. The insult is even emptier because it is so detached from actual statements, campaign promises and voting records.

A candidate like Newt Gingrich can get away with supporting the biggest socialist scheme in American government over the past 30 years because he says nasty things about the press and calls Barack Obama a Marxist. Jon Huntsman, on the other hand, can have a stellar conservative record as Utah’s governor, be anti-abortion and adored by the NRA. But if he refuses to spit out angry screeds against Obama, he’s dismissed as a RINO, the facts be damned.

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So as a public service to POLITICO readers, I, your humble conservative servant, have put together a “Who is the Real RINO?” test. based on voting records, candidate quotes and facts! (Shocking, I know.)

Good luck!

1. Who said, “I will preserve and protect a woman’s right to choose. I am not going to change pro-choice laws in any way”?

A. Mitt Romney

B. Newt Gingrich

C. Jon Huntsman

2. Who bragged about being a moderate with this comment, “There is a new synthesis evolving with the classic moderate wing of the party, where as a former Rockefeller state chairman, I’ve spent most of my life”?

A. Mitt Romney

B. Newt Gingrich

C. Jon Huntsman

3. Who starred in a 2007 global warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi that was sponsored by Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection?

A. Mitt Romney

B. Newt Gingrich

C. Jon Huntsman

4. Who once famously said, “I don’t line up with the NRA”?

A. Mitt Romney

B. Newt Gingrich

C. Jon Huntsman

5. Who was paid $312,000 by ethanol interests and then said ethanol is good for national security and for the economy?

A. Mitt Romney

B. Newt Gingrich

C. Jon Huntsman

6. Which candidate bragged about not being a Republican during the Reagan presidency and promised that if elected he would not “return to Reagan-Bush policies”?

A. Mitt Romney

B. Newt Gingrich

C. Jon Huntsman

7. Which candidate told Planned Parenthood that he supported state funding of abortion?

A. Mitt Romney

B. Newt Gingrich

C. Jon Huntsman

8. Which candidate has consistently supported the type of individual mandates for health insurance that conservatives are trying to overturn through court challenges to Obamacare? (Trick question: Two of three are correct answers.)

A. Mitt Romney

B. Newt Gingrich

C. Jon Huntsman

9. Which candidate went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and called Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan “radical” and “right-wing social engineering”?